A young couple spoke of their fear as flames threatened to engulf their home in the early hours.

The blaze began at around 4.10am on Wednesday after thugs set fire to two piles of refuse sacks waiting for collection in Witchards, in the Kingswood area of Basildon.

The husband, who asked not to be identified, told how they were awoken by a passer-by frantically banging on their front door and shouting to them that the rubbish and an old chair outside the ground-floor flat were on fire.

He said: "We were asleep and didn't really want to open the door for security reasons, but then they told us there was a fire, so we got out as quickly as we could.

"When we came out it was very scary, because the flames were leaping up right outside our front door. We poured buckets of water on it and then the fire brigade came and put it out.

"It seems some people were walking past and just decided they wanted to make a fire. We don't really understand."

Nobody was hurt in the blaze, the cause of which is being investigated by firefighters.